Quests requiring immediate attention...

[Sub-Human]

One of the biggest immersion breakers for me is when I see a quest that requires my immediate attention (Help! My buddy has been jumped by a monster!) and that these quests stay there for the whole game. If I say 'Sure', I help the buddy, recieve a reward/gain good reputation. If I say 'Can't', the buddy is dead, and my reputation may lower. It shouldn't be 'Oh wait, I got some stuff to do, I'll come back in a week, will your buddy be OK?'.

Or if you must don't include them at all. Don't know if that's a good idea, just as long as they aren't broken.

[Zombra]

I love urgent missions, especially if that urgency is made real by a time limit or some such.

But it's OK with me if missions are written as urgent but just sit around waiting. I'm a good enough role-player that I will act as if there is a time limit anyway.

[Sub-Human]

I'm a good enough role-player that I will act as if there is a time limit anyway.

There's still a breaker for me when I keep getting asked to rescue someone. By all means they should have told me to mind my own business for not saving their buddy in time.

[Sloth]

I don't see a problem with urgent missions, as long as they have nothing to do with the main quest and they don't wait for you. I think they are best used in random encounters, but there is nothing wrong with having a quest triggered when you enter a certain location or perform a certain action. I believe that if you decline to do the mission when it is given, then it should not be available to you in the future. In fact, I think it would be kind of cool to come back later and see the repercussions of ignoring the plea for help.

[happy04]

I want urgent missions, but they better be able to be failed without me dying or having to avoid the encounter. A bad ending or failure because I couldn't handle the situation just adds to re playability.

[Zombra]

I want urgent missions, but they better be able to be failed without me dying or having to avoid the encounter. A bad ending or failure because I couldn't handle the situation just adds to re playability.

Seconded. In fact I would be excited to see a game in which you can't "win" every single quest. You have to choose whether to chase the villain or save the people from the burning building. Those are both cool quests, but you have to "lose" (forfeit) at least one of them.

[paultakeda]

As long as time is represented by turns, sure.

[happy04]

I don't see how time can be represented by turns. The whole game won't be in combat and parts outside of combat won't have turns. So unless you expect me to move X number of squares per turn across the whole world map I don't really get how that would even work.

Time has to be based on an ingame metric of time like traveling 64 pixels on the world map takes 1 hour of game time, walking a square/hex/block in game outside of combat takes half a minute, a combat turn takes 10 seconds, and sleeping/resting takes 6-10 hours.

Please explain how turns = time would work.

[paultakeda]

I don't see how time can be represented by turns. The whole game won't be in combat and parts outside of combat won't have turns. So unless you expect me to move X number of squares per turn across the whole world map I don't really get how that would even work.

Time has to be based on an ingame metric of time like traveling 64 pixels on the world map takes 1 hour of game time, walking a square/hex/block in game outside of combat takes half a minute, a combat turn takes 10 seconds, and sleeping/resting takes 6-10 hours.

Please explain how turns = time would work.

A turn defines an action that takes place over time. How much time? This is context-dependent.

Out of combat, when you move, it is a turn. It is not x tiles per turn, it is x time per move which equals a turn. After all, when you move onto a new tile the system runs a series of rolls to determine outcome for your move onto that tile. Once all checks and subsequent results occur, it is again your turn.

You say as much in your second paragraph, by the way, only without using the term "turn" to represent "move".

In WL1, the overworld map moved the clock around 4 minutes per tile. In the town map, each tile was what, 20 seconds (Drool would know more than I about the difference)? In combat, a turn was however many seconds as defined. Simple, but logical. Time exists and it exists as scaled turns/actions.

Complexity can be introduced by making an overworld tile cost more time, such as a swamp tile costing 4x time to move out of versus a road tile. Time is not fixed nor is it fluid in this type of RPG. It is defined according to the scale and context such that a move or action can cost an arbitrary (but game logical) amount of time.

As to combat... here you do have x tiles per turn if combat is visualized, however combat time within a turn is still not exact -- at least I don't perceive it to be so. This is why I have a problem with action points -- something I see as an attempt to divide a turn into units of fixed time when I perceive turns to be varied depending on the action chosen for that turn. I go into further detail on this in another thread, but basically, action points attempt to impose fixed time to the arbitrary time of a turn.

TL;DR: As long as time is based on this in-game concept of a turn/move against a scaled map/action, then it adheres to its RPG mechanics. When time is based on an actual clock, it becomes a quicktime event, something more suitable to action games, including Action-RPGs.

[happy04]

So, standing still didn't make time pass? Seems archaic.

[Drool]

No, it seems like a turn-based game.

[happy04]

Not intending to mean it's a bad thing or that it didn't work. I just think it's something modern games would avoid, mostly because I think the reason the developers made time function that way with moving was that they had to work with limited cpu cycles so every calculation was important, now we can just cram in as much as we need to get the experience right.

Time passing in real life should relate to time passing in the game unless you are in a turn based part of the game like combat or a conversation sequence. I understand time being certain fixed intervals for disarming a bomb or walking on the world map that the player wouldn't want to have to sit and wait for in real life time (or even the accelerated timescale of the game), but standing still in the traditional game play view seems like time should continue on rather than freeze as if the game is paused because I am not moving.

If you're standing around in town, npcs can still wander and other things will still happen in the town around you if it's as animated and immerse as I am hoping it will be. I mean even though nobody really moved around in baldurs gate, time still passed when you weren't doing anything. It doesn't seem like that hurt the game at all, but I guess it wasn't turn based.

Here's why I mentioned anything in the first place; When I came across that part of the post I thought "so could i just stand in front of the timed quest giver and leave my computer waiting a few days over the weekend then hand it in? That seems ridiculous." and maybe it is intended to be forgiving with time, but it just doesn't make sense to my why that would be done in wasteland 2.

[Drool]

Not intending to mean it's a bad thing or that it didn't work. I just think it's something modern games would avoid, mostly because I think the reason the developers made time function that way with moving was that they had to work with limited cpu cycles so every calculation was important, now we can just cram in as much as we need to get the experience right.

It's not just about cycles. Turn-based is a conscious choice. It slows the game down and makes it more strategic as you can plan your next action. Or go deal with some real-life issue without having to pause the game lest some beastie come out of nowhere and chew your face off. Furthermore, being strictly turn-based was hardly a requirement. 1988 also saw the release of Ultima V, Might & Magic II, and Bard’s Tale III. While no monsters would appear if you sat around and did nothing in BT3, time still passed. If you were letting your spell casters naturally regenerate MP while waiting in the daylight, your best course of action wasn’t to wander aimlessly, but to go make yourself a sandwich and ignore the game for 20 or 30 minutes.

Much like Wasteland's color palette, it's not just a matter of limited technology, and there's no reason it wouldn't work in a modern game. In fact, I fully expected Wasteland 2 to be turn-based (and not just because they said it would be turn-based) when I supported the project.

[happy04]

Do you mean that you don't fully support it anymore because you feel it will have some real time elements?

Thats kind of what i'm getting from your post. Reading it it seems that you would like it to be purely turn based where time only progresses when the player is moving or choosing for time to pass, like in wasteland. But it seems that you fear it will be like fallout 2 where time moves on with player inactivity.

I'd like to know that I interpreted that correctly before I respond fully.

[Drool]

Do you mean that you don't fully support it anymore because you feel it will have some real time elements?

That's not what I said at all. And I have no reason to believe there will be real-time elements. See, I actually read the Kickstarter page before donating: "It’s turn based, tactical, with a storyline that will be deeper and broader."

[happy04]

In fact, I fully expected Wasteland 2 to be turn-based (and not just because they said it would be turn-based) when I supported the project.

Sorry, I interpreted this as your support had gone down because "when I supported" gives that.

Uhm, I'm just saying I feel like the game is going to "feel" real time when i'm outside of combat or time sensitive sequences. Bryan Fargo seems to always speak highly of baldur's gate and i'd be really surprised if he didn't want to have that feeling where things move smoothly and things are happening around you when you are spending time in a non combat situation like the circus area.

[crossfirex]

I don't mind urgent missions, it's just that, you are kind of right, they aren't exactly urgent if you can come back a day later and the guy you were supposed to save is still standing there waiting.